Twenty-two
pianists, united by their sex, jostle for disc space in
this tightly packed volume from Naxos covering the years
1926-52. The second volume in this series is already lined
up and promises us twenty more. Nationalities are widespread
but there are some consonances between them, not least
in respect of their teachers; Matthay in London but more
especially Isidore Phillip in Paris; Monique de la Bruchollerie,
Guiomar Novaes and Emma Boynet all studied with that most
distinguished pedagogue. Certainly there is also the programmatic
question to consider, as the majority of these twenty-two
pieces are firefly morceaux, encore morsels or rhythmically
enticing dance-dramas. But if one considers the recital
as a glimpse at some under-sung performances – mixed in
with the leavening of internationally accepted great players – then
it makes for some diverting listening.

I’d
like to hear more of Monique de la Bruchollerie who was
apparently the first French pianist to record concertos
by Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov back in the 1950s.
Her Saint-Saëns is in the best French style, clear and
spirited. That Iris Loveridge became better known as a
specialist in British music shouldn’t blind us to her real
talents throughout the repertoire though her Palmgren can
offer only the tiniest chink of light on that part of her
career. Her compatriot Marie Novello has a niche place
in specialists’ hearts. Notwithstanding the fact that she
was a Leschetizky pupil her discs, the few she made before
her wretchedly early death at thirty, show a finished artist.
Naxos has gone for the best recorded, her 1927 HMV, though
her earlier Winners and Edison Bells are just as impressive
musically speaking. It seems as if she’d just contracted
with HMV which would have raised her profile substantially;
she died of cancer the following year.

Occasionally
the net widens in respect of source material and that’s
the case with Sari Biro’s transcription disc. She was the
first woman to recorded Pictures at anExhibition the
notes tell us, back in 1951. Reah Sadowsky glitters in
the moto perpetuo heroics of the Vianna, with its
saucy Mediterranean sway, and we can also enjoy the de
Falla specialist Aline Isabelle van Barentzen as she performs
music with which she was so intimately associated. Harriet
Cohen is here, performing Bax’s Paean as is Ruth
Slenczynska, a pianist I greatly admire (listen out for
her Ivory Classics CDs), playing Rachmaninov; she takes
time to get going but the disc comes from her own (semi-official?)
label. Hilde Sommer is captured on an Austrian Remington.

As
for sound quality, well, doubtless I’m becoming a bore
on this subject but however superficially attractive it
may be to erase surface noise the problem is what you lose
with it. This disc promotes the middle frequencies at the
expense of treble. I ran my Novello and Hess 78s alongside
these transfers and the starvation in the higher frequencies
was all too audible. But the compensation for those who
were not reared on extraneous noise is no shellac hiss.

The
biographical documentation is first class - to the point,
not flowery but very relevant. My only problem is that
the notes trace the pianists chronologically whilst the
track-listing doesn’t so I can guarantee you will be flicking
back and forth trying to relate each woman’s date of birth
with the relevant section in the booklet. But you can cope
with that.

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